One Winter Morning by Isabelle Broom is her Best Novel Yet!

One Winter Morning is Isabelle Broom's best novel yet! It is in turns brilliant, fabulous, engaging, emotional, heart-rending, and beautiful.
Set around Christmas, it's not a traditional Christmas story with turkey, tinsel and mistletoe, because this December, Genie sets off to New Zealand to find her birth mother, Bonnie, but ends up finding much, much more.
It's nearly a year since her adoptive mother, Anna, died on Christmas Eve in an accident on Genie's horse, Sukie. Genie blames herself for the death of the mother she loved so much, and the horse the meant so much to her.  She's spent the last year unable to forgive herself or forget that fateful day. However, when David, her adoptive father, tells Genie that her birth mother is living in New Zealand, she just has to go.
Isabelle Broom's beautiful description of this special country makes you feel that you are really there and adds a deep dimension to the story. Also, the characters are believable and you feel that you really know them and really care how things work out for them.
Apart from New Zealand, being an important background to the novel, there are also the stables both there, and in England, where the horses add another dimension to the storytelling.
This book reminds me of the earlier ones by JoJo Moyes, and Isabelle Broom is proving to be another such accomplished writer.

One Thousand Stars and You by Isabelle Broom - a Fabulous Book, in a Fabulous Setting, with a Fabulous Love Affair!

One Thousand Stars and You is a new departure for Isabelle Broom. After a series of wonderful books set in Zakynthos, Andalusia, Lake Como and Prague, she has spread her wings to Sri Lanka! Here, she shows just what a great writer she is with Rosanna Ley's sense of place and Jojo Moyes' sense of empathy.

Alice has always been adventurous and taken risks as a child, but one day, she falls through the greenhouse roof, resulting in a long scar down the side of her face. Her mother can't cope with Alice's injury and blames herself, so she wraps her in cotton wool, but as she grows up, Alice still wants to test herself and still wants freedom. However, to please her mother, she falls in love with Richard, a safe, kind, devoted boyfriend who is also a History teacher. But is he  really the right one for her? To test her frustration, she dives off a high board into a pool, but the guilt she feels because of her controlling mother and her boyfriend's concern, outweighs the thrill of the dive.

With their thirtieth birthdays approaching in April, she  decides to go with her friends, Maureen and Steph, to Sri Lanka on an adventure of a lifetime. Richard and her mother are worried, and well they should be, because the girls meet Max and Jamal.

Adam's Peak, Sri Lanka - from Wikipedia

Max has a prosthetic leg because of an accident with a landmine in Afghanistan, and Jamal was his physio who has become his friend and protector. Steph is enchanted by Jamal, but Alice and Maureen are both attracted to Max. Of course, Maureen thinks she hasn't any competition because Alice has  Richard. Right? Wrong! Alice is getting more and more captivated by Max, and has to question what she really wants in life. This all comes to a head when these two kindred spirits who want to escape their protective, smothering families, climb Adam's Peak and Alice has to reassess her future. 

This is a fabulous book, in a fabulous setting, with a fabulous love affair. I loved it and I shall certainly read it again!

Then. Now. Always. by Isabelle Broom - Sun, Sand and Sangria - the Perfect Holiday Read!

In my last post, I wrote about the two novels set in Lanzarote that I took on my cruise. Well, two books are never enough because I'm scared of running out of something to read, so I took the latest book by Isabelle Broom that I've been longing to get my teeth into: Then. Now. Always.
This emotional roller-coaster of a story is set in Mojácar, Andalusia, in southern Spain, so not all that far from the Spanish Canary Islands, and Isabelle Broom takes you right into this romantic mountain village with its traditional white-washed buildings with blue-painted doors, and village square, complete with sparkling fountain.

Hannah has a tattoo on her wrist of the ancient Indalo Man which reminds her of that teenage summer she spent there ten years ago with her schoolfriend, Rachel, but now she is a researcher for an independent TV company, run by the gorgeous Greek, Theo, who she's fancied ever since she got her job. They are in Mojácar making a documentary about the Spanish village with Tom, the cameraman and her friend since uni, and Claudette, the temperamental and highly strung French narrator.
The embarrassing memories of that summer long ago that Hannah wishes she could forget threaten to resurface; the arrival of her half-sister, Nancy, whom she's never got on with, also threatens to spoil her month in the sun; plus the story of local artist, Elaine, that Hannah uncovers, all combine to make this novel of sun, sand, and of course, Sangria, the perfect holiday read. I loved it!

Now I'm really looking forward to reading One Thousand Stars and You, set in Sri Lanka, and released on August 23rd, 2018!

The Place We Met by Isabelle Broom - A Great Read for Cold, Dark January Days and Nights!

If you've read my blog before, you'll know that I like to read novels set in the places I've visited. Therefore, I loved The Place We Met, the latest book by Isabelle Broom, especially as it's set around Lake Como, Italy, where I spent a wonderful few days in September.

Taggie works at the Casa Alta Hotel near Como, it's nearly New Year's Eve and her big chance to make her name by putting on a big party and achieving her dream of becoming an events organiser; however, there a heartbreaking event in her own past that she's finding hard to forget.
Then, when she visits her secret beach by Lake Como, and slips into the icy water, strong, gorgeous Marco lifts her out, but is a new love interest what she really wants, or needs?

Lucy treats her boyfriend, Pete, to a New Year's break at Lake Como. She's not usually spontaneous, but surely a few days in such a romantic spot will help their relationship, especially after she finds a shoebox full of photos of a glamorous woman at the back of his wardrobe, and he receives some phone calls that he won't tell her about.

The story is told in turn from Taggie's and Lucy's point of view as the plot thickens and their lives intertwine.

For Isabelle Broom, the lake is an integral part of the novel, another character reflecting the emotional highs and lows of the girls as they come to terms with their past and move forward into the New Year.

I think that this New Year, it's a great read for all these cold, dark January days and nights.

(Look at my photo of Bellagio, it's almost the same as the cover of the book, but lots warmer!)

My Map of You by Isabelle Broom - Coming to terms with the past and looking forward to the future on the magical Greek Island of Zakynthos

Who can resist reading about summer holidays now autumn's  here? Dreaming of revisiting those magical days spent in the sun?

Here, in My Map of You, Isabelle Broom transports you to the Greek holiday island of Zakynthos with Holly Wright who has just inherited a house there from an aunt she's never heard of. And you can explore the island with Holly as she discovers the secrets of her family's past.
Holly has a good job at Flash magazine (even if she doesn't get on with her boss, Fiona) and a wonderful boyfriend called Rupert, but when she receives the solicitor's letter about the house in Zakynthos, her whole life changes.
She's still trying to come to terms with the death of her mother, Jenny, from alcoholism, and now she's shocked to find that Jenny had a twin sister, Sandra, who has left her the house. Why had she never heard about her before?
Isabelle Broom cleverly reveals the relationship between these two to the reader in tantalising letters added to the end of some of the chapters which Holly eventually finds. Also she discovers a map of the island, drawn by the sisters of all their happy places, so their life on the island can't have been all that bad. What happened to change their relationship?
Of course, she has a gorgeous neighbour in Zakynthos, Aidan, an Irish vet, who takes her to some of these places. She is attracted to him, but wants to solve the mystery of her mother and aunt more than anything else, so goes off on a moped that one of the islanders, Nikos, lends her.
All the characters are beautifully drawn from Kostos at the local store, to Phelan, Aidan's dog.
It's a wonderful story of Holly's exploration of the island and her own life, where she comes to terms with the past and can look forward to the future, but will it be with Rupert or Aidan? In London, or the magical Greek island of Zakynthos?
It's very popular at the moment to write about girls returning to, or inheriting, a house and uncovering family secrets, but this is one of the best I've read.